Tue 26 Jan, 2010
“Tim Tebow Super Bowl ad sparks clash”
3:40 pm Comments (11) Filed under: Ethics, Life and ChoicesTags: Abortion, Focus on the Family, Gay Rights, Tim Tebow
The Faith and Reason blog at USA Today tells us Tim Tebow is going to be featured in a commercial during the Super Bowl. Tebow, who just finished up his senior year of football at the University of Florida, is a natural for appearing on Super Bowl Sunday—many consider him the best college quarterback in the land, if not the best player in any position. (I’m not a Gator fan, by the way!)
What’s raising a ruckus is first, that he is an outspoken evangelical Christian, and second, that the ad is to be sponsored by Focus on the Family. The ad’s content has not been made public in detail, but the sponsor has made it known that it’s a pro-life message. Here’s how Cathy Lynn Grossman at Faith and Reason described the problem:
What’s not to love? What’s the issue here? How about…
I love my family more than you love your family” [sic] v. My love is as good as yours.
Or
God honors my choices, not yours.
That’s the subtext of the Tebow ad, an affront to anyone who would make a different choice, say those who strenuously object to CBS’ plan to air it. They see Focus on the Family — known for its stands against gay marriage, reproductive rights education beyond promoting abstinence, and opposition to legal abortion — delivering it’s [sic] views to a massive family audience on Super Bowl Sunday.
An ad that uses sports to divide rather than to unite has no place in the biggest national sports event of the year — an event designed to bring Americans together,” said Jehmu Greene, speaking for a a coalition of women who oppose the ad.
Is the Super Bowl the place for this or not? I really wouldn’t want the game turned into a battleground for worldviews. Thirty-second spots just aren’t the right medium for the kind of interaction that solves problems: the reasoned, mutually respectful sort. There might be good reasons to think twice about taking the culture war to a new battlefield. As genuine and as uplifting as Tebow’s story may be (and it genuinely is), someone else could surely concoct a commercial that feels as uplifting from the other side of the issue. Where does that get us?
But last I heard, CBS is going to run the ad anyway. If there are objections to it, here’s hoping they’re not raised for the wrong reasons—like the ones suggested in the excerpts I quoted above. I seriously doubt Tebow (and his mother, who reportedly also is involved in the spot) plans to communicate the first message there (“I love my family more…”). If he did it would be wrong, certainly, but from what I know about him, that’s just not going to happen. The suggestion that he would do that amounts to an advance scare tactic and nothing more.
What about, “God honors my choices, not yours,“ though? That would be wrong, too. It would be wrong in the same way as “Christians hold the truth” is wrong. If the message is to be, “I’ve got God in my hip pocket,” or “God is on my side,” that would be offensive not only to some sectors of a national audience, but to God himself.
I don’t expect them to make God a part of this ad. That’s just a guess, based on the media buzz I’ve seen so far. But since the Faith and Reason blog brought it up, I want to spend some moments on it anyway.
Suppose the message is, “I choose to honor God with my choices.” That’s different. That’s recognizing where honor belongs. It’s recognizing that God doesn’t pick one man or woman’s side over any others.
Note what happened when an angel of the Lord came to Joshua (Joshua 5:13-15):
When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?” And he said, “No; but I am the commander of the army of the Lord. Now I have come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him, “What does my lord say to his servant?” And the commander of the Lord’s army said to Joshua, “Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so.
This Commander didn’t take Joshua’s side, but that’s not to say there were no sides in the battle. There was the Lord’s side, and there was opposition to the Lord’s side, and of course those who wanted to take the true and victorious side joined with the Lord. Joshua signified that by taking off his sandals in worship before this Commander (who many commentators think may have been the pre-incarnate Christ).
Make no mistake, there are sides in the battle for morality and for life. There is great confusion, though, as to how these sides are formed and named. There are those who think that morality is their own choice (or their community’s or culture’s choice). There are others who think morality is something we all grow into (biologically and/or culturally) and we don’t really have much choice over what we value or honor. For either group, there is morality but there is no moral authority, except in perhaps in history and culture (expressed by law and custom). There are other views besides these, but these are dominant in our culture.
If either of those were actually the case, then it would make sense to ask, “Who are you to say my morality is wrong?” And I think many people think that we are all operating out of that authority-free attitude toward morality. This, I believe, is why they can’t understand anyone saying someone else’s morality was wrong. For them, there’s no basis for saying that, and they think that’s what everyone should think. (That view often turns ironic, of course, when it bleeds over into saying “it’s immoral of you to say that someone else’s morality is wrong.” But I’ll just mention that in passing and leave it aside.)
The issue, as Brad Bright says, is God. If there is a God who is holy, good, and just, then there are sides. There is a right side and a wrong one. The wrong one is whatever opposes God, and the right one is the one that seeks to follow his ways. None of us could ever succeed in enlisting God to our own side, but anyone can enlist to join God on his side. Anyone can learn what God says is right and wrong, and if they speak of right and wrong, they do it not on their own authority but on God’s. If that is “an affront to anyone who would make a different choice,” it’s not just a person-to-person affront. It’s a confrontation with true, transcendent authority.
Anyone can honor God’s choices. I have a feeling that if this commercial says anything about God, choices, and honor, that’s what it’s going to say. We’ll see.
